2027/3025 Transfer Rollers

[Caveman]

Has anyone come up with an effective method for cleaning transfer rollers on the RICOH 1027/2027/3025 models? I find that many of these rollers prematurely fail causing thin white banding - I have tried to gently clean the foam composite material that the roller is made of with a soft dry shop rag but this does little to even out the quality of the print. Any suggestions other than replacing the roller would be appreciated - thank you.

Caveman

[schooltech]

I've always cleaned tx rollers using a slightly damp sontara towel with water. And, they were cleaned with very light pressure.

Do not use alcohol on these transfer rollers.

[rthonpm]

I generally just replace them outright even if they fail early (I rarely see this though). You can save yourself a little bit of space and just use the B2093831 for all models back to the AF270. It's even a little cheaper than the A2673831 part so if you have any kind of review based on parts cost that helps too.

[ash_572]

the best way to clean a transfer roller in them is with PAPER. BUT NOT CRUNCHED PAPER.

[cobiray]

How premature are you seeing the failures? The only time I've had an issue with the rollers is when heavy stock is used on a consistent basis. Usually the roller diameter has changed (smaller) causing the light copies, making cleaning a non remedy.

[etsmultan]

Clean it wth water nd soft duster

[Fearless V K]

I have cleaned these with water before, it looked good for about a week, then looked like sh*t again. Better off replacing it.

[schooltech]

Looking at the posts again, I am wondering why your transfer rollers are wearing out early. When I cleaned them, they were just on regular visits. Just a light cleaning with water got a bit of the haze off of them, but when it was time to replace them I swapped them out.

How long are you going between cleanings/visits?

Are your SP settings normal, or did another tech tweak some voltage settings?

Are you at a high altititude that might be affecting the voltages?

I had a few machines over 6,000+ feet above sea level that did weird things to the transfer belts and charge rollers on the machines. These where the only machines that the rollers and belts would not go the distance on a regular basis.

[Fearless V K]

The problem seems to be with that particular model range. You start to get a splotchy white pattern in the solids when they age. You don't have to tweak them at all.

[schooltech]

That's interesting because all of the 2027's and such I had in the field, other than the few at high altitudes, worked great. I had A LOT of these machines in the field too. I never had problems with them wearing out early; maybe I'm just lucky on that one. I have seen that splotchy white you're talking about, but not so much the banding and streaking though that was first described in the post.

Is it possible that he has a bad 'lot' of them in the PM kits, or weird aftermarket toner?

[Fearless V K]

We use all OEM. We are a Savin dealer. I have only had the splotchy problem. Not the banding and smearing described before.

[Shadow1]

I had a very early '27 that was factory loaded with preproduction firmware. The machine is supposed to reverse bias the roller to clean it back to the drum, but this machine didn't. The back of some copies were dirty, but not too bad until the roller got clogged with paper dust.

I doubt firmware is your problem, but the power supply maybe?

I have these machines with 500k+ on the original roller. When they start giving me problems, they're usually starting to disintegrate and have chunks missing.

I'm below 500' elevation, but we have humidity problems which can cause more funky things than altitude. I'm betting on a bad lot - just replace it - they're not that expensive for the headache it will cause.